Atlantic Coral Reefs Are Now Protected by Law

Either global warming or excessive fishing and lack of care and affection for nature or everything combined poses great risks of irreversible degradation in almost all ecosystems in the world. It seems that wildlife is facing a continuous crisis ever since the effects of global warming started taking over our day to day life. The good news is that Atlantic Coral Reefs are now protected by law, as US authorities approved a proposal to ban bottom-tending fishing in 38.000 square miles of ocean that are off the US Atlantic Coast.

A few days earlier we were offered the great opportunity to observe the depths of the ocean thanks to Google Streetview project that allowed for more than 20 underwater cameras to dive into the great barrier of reefs. That was a good moment for biology and for environmentalists to observe and maybe track the changes that occurred lately, affecting the marine life of the great reef.

The new law proposal will be submitted as a recommendation to the US commerce secretary and could become active starting with next year.

Apart from this much beneficial proposal that is set to protect the wildlife in the Atlantic Ocean, we must be aware that legislation systems don’t necessarily represent a good solution for the state of nature nowadays. First of all us, common people must be the ones to take measures in order to stop the continuous degradation of wildlife, facing high level of extinction among species and disappearance of entire green areas.

However, the new law protecting the corals found in the Atlantic Ocean will offer scientists the chance to observe, analyze and discover a part of nature’s ecosystem that is not yet fully understood. There are still new species that wait to be uncovered, new biological processes and new secrets that must be unveiled and then protected against human intervention that could make them disappear or degrade.

This law proposal will protect the most valuable and unique habitats in the region, as an official from New Jersey squid fishery declared. On the other hand, environmentalists push for the law to apply to a larger area in the ocean and leaders of the fishery industry don’t hesitate to answer with objections.

All in all, as Brad Sewell, the fisheries policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council noted, this vote “marks a milestone in ocean protection efforts”.